I didn’t realize exactly how much you were on my mind until my inbox lit up with your name and I said to my empty house “oh hello baby!”

I like that your hair always smells clean but looks dirty and that  no matter how hard you try to be clean shaven your beard always makes a return within hours. I like that I can say ridiculous things to you and not get embarrassed. I like that I can make you laugh with my laugh. I like that you still give me butterflies.

I like how I don’t have to worry what you think about me. You tell me, no one else does that. You like my hair down and straight. You like it when I sing in the shower and you like it when I draw on your back. You hate my nose ring and my brown shoes but tell me I’m beautiful anyway.

I like that you make me so sure.

I like that whenever we watch a movie you insist upon silence that just after the opening credits you pull me close and are happy to answer all the questions I will inevitably ask you. I like that we talk about the future with a ridiculous amount of hope and that you indulge me when I make wild plans. You think I am disorganised and are amazed by what you can find at the bottom of my hand bag.

I like that sometimes, I get drunk and act with reckless abandon, like a child and that you don’t care what anyone else thinks of me, you just hand me another drink. I like that you’re proud of me and introduce me to your friends. I like your sister.

I like how when I am excited about something you get excited too. I like how your hands move when you tell me a story and how your voice changes when you speak to me in English.  I like that you’re not embarrassed to ask a question, which you should already know the answer to.

I like that we still alternate periods of blissful happiness and physical complicity with intense bursts of conflict and hot tears, just like we always have.

I like that we’ve changed since we met and now we’re really good at being friends.

But mostly, I like that were on the opposite sides of the world and you some how make me feel like I am still a part of it all. In fact, I think that’s what I like the most.

Lots of like,

Me.

This way you will always remember the way the moonlight fell. You’ll remember the intense green of the Atlantic, the sound of the humming civil war electrics, the scent of his cologne, the roughness of his beard or the details of his skin. Later, in the moments when the electrics drive you mad, when the moon is too dark to show you the brightness of that green sea and the daily grime gets you down in a spiral of blue and black and grey, when you’re far from home and when nothing else will make you smile, when nothing else will let you sleep you can call on these perfect moments to bring some level of comfort and to find once again the details of his skin.

These moments of course like nearly all the great things in life are bitter sweet. They bring both comfort and lament. They are windows to lost time, lost opportunity, lost connections, lost love and an entire sea of regrets.

Many years ago, in a school playground I met my best friend. She was beautiful, as she uttered her first words and took my 8 year old hand, I fell instantly and hopeless in love. Time would not freeze however and today we are far away separated not only by distance but by the challenges life has so frequently put in our way.

More recently, I unexpectedly fell in love and recognized it the very moment. We woke at 5am when the heat of Spanish summer had chilled so that our sweating bodies, his and mine had somehow cleaved together in the night into one long, firm embrace, a hug that somehow obliterated past and future and, warm and secure, fixed us perfectly in a moment of quietly universal proportions. And I knew just at that moment that this would never happen in exactly the same way again.